04/05/2022
Welcome back to "The Road from Kings Mountain," where we follow the victorious patriot army and their loyalist prisoners. On this day, October 14th, the army remains at Biggerstaff's Old Fields. Colonel Campbell issues another General Order, deploring the "many deserters from the army" who are harassing the area's inhabitants: "It is with anxiety that I hear the complaints of the inhabitants on account of the plundering parties who issue out of the camp, and indiscriminately rob both Whig and Tory, leaving our friends, I believe, in a worse situation than the enemy would have done." He appeals to the officers "to exert themselves in suppressing this abominable practice, degrading to the name of soldiers." Furthermore, he declares that none of the troops will be discharged until the prisoners can be turned over to a proper guard.
Later in the day, the officers from the Carolinas present a formal complaint to Campbell accusing several of the captured loyalists of looting, burning, breaking parole, and murder (the British had recently hanged eleven captured patriots at Ninety Six, and these leaders believe retaliation is at hand). Colonel Shelby and the other officers persuade Campbell to allow a court-martial made up of twelve field officers and Captains to try the thirty-six loyalists accused of crimes. According to Colonel Isaac Shelby's account, "thirty-six men were tried, and found guilty of breaking open houses, killing the men, turning the women and children out of doors, and burning the houses. The trial was concluded late at night; and the ex*****on of the law was as summary as the trial."
When the trials are over, the patriots select a suitable oak tree and light hundreds of pine-knot torches to illuminate the scene. The convicted loyalists are executed three at a time and left hanging. According to loyalist Lieutenant Anthony Allaire, "These brave but unfortunate Loyalists, with their latest breath expressed their unutterable detestation of the Rebels, and of their base and infamous proceedings; and, as they were being turned off, extolled their King and the British government. Mills, Wilson and Chitwood died like Romans." Patriot Captain Paddy Carr declares, "Would to God every tree in the wilderness bore such fruit as that!"
After nine men are hanged--Colonel Ambrose Mills, Captain James Chitwood, Captain Wilson, Captain Walter Gilkey, Captain Grimes, Lieutenant Lafferty, John McFall, John Bibby, and Augustine Hobbs--with three more waiting, Shelby proposes a halt. The other officers agree, and the hangings stop. One of the reprieved loyalists relates to Shelby that British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton will arrive in the morning, so the army prepares for an early march the next morning.
